| 10:30am |
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| The glacier at Breiðárlón |
The buttresses still stood. |
Regrettably, we failed to find the grey kitty to say goodbye before leaving Flatey.
We headed West along the RingRoad, stopping briefly at
Breiðárlón, a small glacier a little bit off the road.
We also saw the ruins of some bridges destroyed in 1996, when volcanic activities led
to the flooding of a crater lake beneath the glacier, sending a wall of water 5m high
sweeping away everything miles around, including these bridges.
Later in the same day we would see the wrecks of Skeidarárbrú, the longest bridge in Iceland, all twisted and broken.
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| 3:15pm |
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| Twisted ruins of Skeidarárbrú |
After lunch at the visitor center, we crossed
Skeidarárbrú, the longest bridge in
Iceland and the segment of the RingRoad to be completed last.
Before its completion in 1975, to travel from Skaftefell to the capital meant taking
the long journey through eastern and northern Iceland, or trekking through the
barren interior of Iceland.
After the bridge was destroyed in 1996 by the crater lake flooding,
 |
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| Krossárfoss falling over the cliffs. |
Krossárfoss viewed between the Drawf Cliffs. |
a temporary bridge was rebuilt in three weeks,
a testimony to the resilence of the Icelandic people.
Later we stopped at Dverghamrar (Drawf Cliffs)
to take some pictures of Krossárfoss.
By the time the chilly rain was falling heavily and the ladies decided to stay in
the car, while Thomas and CK managed to have a five-minute stroll without catching
a bad cold.
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| 5:15pm |
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| CK giving kittie a massage. |
Now we were feeling warm again. |
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| Esther and Thomas giving each other massages. |
When you were feeling cold, nothing could warm you faster than alcohol and a hot tub.
We found both at Hotel Höfðabrekka near Vík, which in additional also came
with a nice cat.
This one was an elderly kittie, but also adorable in her own way.
After regaining our body warmth, we headed out for dinner in
Vík (The Bay),
the biggest town in southern Iceland.
Unfortunately, the choices of eateries in Vík was extremely limited.
We ended up at a place where we had to waited for 20 minutes before getting a menu,
had to get drinking water ourselves from a jar which was almost always empty
(everyone needed water, so whenever the jar was refilled -- an infrequent occurence --
the water was immediately comsumed), and most importantly, served mediocre food.
Our worst dining experience in Iceland.
We slept with the winds howling outside the windows,
and ice was forming over the pond outside the hotel. Welcome to Iceland.
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